David Ayer’s (Harsh Times, End of Watch) Fury is a mix of bits and pieces from about every war movie you’ve ever seen. It’s Saving Private Ryan meets Apocalypse Now meets Black Hawk Down meets platoon sprinkled in with a little bit of The Perfect Storm (nonwar movie). It unsuccessfully tries to tug on your emotions while trying to tell fragments of stories about each of the five main characters. If you were to just read spoilers for this movie, you might think this movie is fantastic. The trailer makes the film look incredible.

I think the potential was there for this movie to be a classic. It sort of had the correct script. It had the right group of actors. I don’t think the direction was excellent. If the goal was to feel for these characters like you do for the movies I mentioned in the first couple sentences of this review, it ultimately failed. If the goal was to leave you with a story that you’d remember for years and years, it died there too. If the goal was to provide a two-hour escape from life, I’m not even sure it did that. At times it was far too slow, and you weren’t exactly sitting on the edge of your seat during the action scenes. But, on the other hand, I never felt like I wasn’t watching a movie. That’s never a good thing.

What I did enjoy the most was that this was a tank movie. I’ve never seen a tank movie before. I’m not even sure if there have been that many that have been made. I had no idea five people operated tanks (at least the US tanks in World War II). Nor did I know that three of these people were situated with their heads and bodies outside the tank during battle. The camaraderie among the five men in a tank is similar to the company you’d have with any tight unit. I thought the scenes within the tank were, in a way, better than the battle scenes, just because they were so unique. The battle scenes were incredible too, but you knew going in that you would see those. I wanted to get to know the characters better. I wanted to hear their backstories. I wanted to learn more about how the crew was assembled and some of their previous missions. You got some of this information to an extent, but it wasn’t nearly enough for me. The movie never felt rushed. I also didn’t think it was too long. I think there were two or three scenes that were much longer than needed. I understand what those scenes were trying to do, but since they didn’t accomplish their goal, it made those parts go by even slower.

What I liked second most was the acting. Brad Pitt (World War Z, Moneyball) had his A game going as US Army Staff Sergeant Don Collier (or Wardaddy by his crew). Collier has a tough exterior and is rigid in front of his men, but the brutalities of war break him down when he is alone, just like any man would. He is an intelligent leader who puts the safety of his men first and is a true American through thick and thin. His crew consists of Bible (Shia LeBoeuf – Disturbia, Transformers), a man who got his name by quoting scripture and following the Book of Christianity to the letter of the law. The others may not share his religious beliefs and hound him on it a bit, but Bible is, for the most part, accepting enough not to let it disrupt the core. Grady (Jon Bernthal – television’s The Walking Dead) is the group’s loose cannon. Down deep, he has a good heart and can be reigned in, but he’s a challenge. Sometimes it is easier to let him get the craziness out of his system rather than to try to calm him down. Gordo (Michael Pena – Crash, End of Watch) is the tank’s driver and the heart of the group. While the others respect Collier, they probably like Gordo the most. The rookie in the group is Norman (Logan Lerman – The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Noah). Initially trained to be a typing clerk, Norman is eight weeks into the military and never imagined he would be thrust into action as the tank’s gunner after the soldier who previously held the position was killed in battle. This is the first part of the movie that seems a little far-fetched. You’ve got someone thrown into a situation where his job is to gun down German soldiers even though he has never shot at another person in his life. Outside of the driver, I’m not sure what the most critical job inside a tank is, but I suspect the machine gunner position is pretty important. Norman’s inexperience and tentativeness put the crew in danger on more than one occasion.

In any case, Fury is the name of the tank. We are told in the film’s opening credits that it is April 1945. The war is all but over as the Americans have entered Germany. The desperate Nazis have forced every man, woman, and child to fight. The Germans have more technologically advanced tanks than the Americans do. Hitler’s troops are prepared for their final stand. We first see the tank when it is the sole survivor of its last mission, despite losing one crew member. Almost immediately, the crew is sent out again, this time with three other tanks, to help a group of soldiers stranded in the middle of nowhere and then to take over a small town. Chaos ensues. There are many casualties along the way. The question becomes how bad it will get for these four tanks as they advance further and further into enemy lines and what sort of madness will ensue as danger mounts. What will happen next when they do reach their goal? How will Norman adjust to battle? How will he adapt to the established team? Will Collier be able to maintain his crew as situations become more threatening? Will the others be able to keep Grady under control?

If you like war movies, you’ll want to check Fury out. But be prepared that it will probably lack the punch you are anticipating. With that said, you could do far worse with Fury. There were efforts to make this a great movie. It just did not meet its potential, in my opinion. The lack of emotional connections between the characters and the audience eliminates the film’s fine performances. The ending became a bit predictable as the movie moved along. And, for me, this always felt like a movie, which is rare for a Brad Pitt movie. Check it out at home. I don’t think it’s necessary to see it on the big screen unless you are a war movie guru.

Plot 8.5/10
Character Development 5/10
Character Chemistry 8/10
Acting 8.5/10
Screenplay 7.5/10
Directing  6.5/10
Cinematography 8.5/10
Sound 7.5/10 (weak for a war movie)
Hook and Reel 8/10
Universal Relevance 9/10 (not based on a true story, but I feel confident there were stories just like this during WWII)
77%

Movies You Might Like If You Liked This Movie

• Saving Private Ryan
• Hacksaw Ridge
• 1917
• Windtalkers
• We Were Soldiers